Weak looking-ahead and its application in computer-integrated process planning

Abstract

Constraint logic programming has been shown to be a very useful tool for knowledge representation and problem-solving in different areas. Finite Domain extensions of PROLOG together with efficient consistency techniques such as forward-checking and looking-ahead make it possible to solve many discrete combinatorial problems within a short development time. In this paper we present the weak looking-ahead strategy (WLA), a new consistency technique on finite domains combining the computational efficiency of forward-checking with the pruning power of looking-ahead. Moreover, incorporating weak looking-ahead into PROLOG's SLD resolution gives a sound and complete inference rule whereas standard looking-ahead itself has been shown to be incomplete. Finally, we will show how to use weak looking-ahead in a real-world application to obtain an early search-space pruning while avoiding the control overhead involved by standard looking-ahead.